Liverpool held their nerve to win an astonishing penalty shoot-out 11-10 and beat Chelsea in the League Cup final as an absorbing contest ended 0-0 after 120 minutes of action at Wembley.
Both sides could claim to have been deserving winners in a classic free-flowing encounter full of goalscoring chances, remarkable saves and disallowed goals.
Joel Matip had a goal disallowed for Liverpool, before the offside flag twice denied Kai Havertz and also ruled out a Romelu Lukaku strike.
Even in the penalty shoot-out the two sides were inseparable with 21 successful kicks ratcheting up the tension.
It came down to a test between two goalkeepers with Liverpool’s Caoimhin Kelleher belting his effort past Kepa Arrizabalaga who had replaced Edouard Mendy for the shoot-out.
Spaniard Arrizabalaga then blazed his effort over the bar into the massed ranks of Liverpool supporters who celebrated the club’s first domestic Cup silverware for a decade.
